Bartender alleges homophobic attack; witness doubtful

A bartender at a Capitol Hill nightclub told police he was attacked because he was gay, and a witness to the incident said the man was being confrontational with his alleged attackers.

A police department incident report released this week shows the call was convoluted.

The bartender at Neighbours, at 1509 Broadway Ave., told police he was walking to his pickup truck with a friend Feb. 17 when he allegedly heard someone yelling gay epithets at him.

The bartender, who told police he’s gay, approached the man in a confrontational manner, according to the report. The front passenger in the suspect vehicle continued to yell gay epithets at the man, according to the bartender.

“(The man) described how the front passenger then looked at the driver in the vehicle, the driver exited the car, retrieved a baseball bat from the back, approached (the man) and struck him in the head with the baseball bat,” Officer Kathryn Andre wrote in an incident report.

Police received a call about 2:20 a.m. about a fight involving people with a baseball bat. The man who approached the suspects with the bat told police he defused the situation, but did not explain how.

Medics said the bartender appeared OK at the scene, and recommended he to go the hospital if he wanted. The bartender allegedly changed details of his story and “repeatedly told fire he was a ‘cowboy,'” according to the report.

A QFC security guard said the bartender was slamming his hands on the trunk of a silver Mercedes with the two men inside. They were telling him to stop, but he opened a door and one of the other men later grabbed the baseball bat, the security guard told police.

The bartender dared the second suspect to hit him with the bat, but the suspect stood still, the guard told Andre. He later hit bartender in the torso with a one-handed bat swing after the bartender lunged at him, according to the report.

The argument continued and the bartender was hit again in the head, according to the guard. The bartender’s account had several differences from the account told to police by the QFC security guard.

Police asked the bartender if he might have been too intoxicated to remember. He said no, then told Andre he knew what was too much. She said that comment didn’t mean much.

“Blow me!” he allegedly responded.

“I believed he meant a (Breathalyzer) to show his level of intoxication and it was reiterated by (the man’s) repeated correction of himself of what he did not mean by the comment,” Andre wrote. “I advised (the bartender) he should go up to the hospital to get his head checked out.”